KEY POINTS:
Teneale Hatton is touted as the next great thing in New Zealand women's kayaking, and we have the Aussies to thank for the gathering pace of her progress.
Hatton is a dual surf life saving and kayak exponent, who will keep up this double sporting life with the
aim of representing New Zealand at the world surf championships next year, and in the Olympic kayaking beyond that.
Her growing reputation was bolstered when she posted a personal best time to win the K1 1000 at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney last month, where she also scored silver in the 500m event.
The 19-year-old from the Orewa Surf Lifesaving club will line up in the provincial surf league at Mt Maunganui this weekend, fired by her second season with the Kurrawa club on Australia's Gold Coast where she also trains with the Australian Institute of Sport kayakers.
The Queenstown-born Hatton always had a strong Aussie surf link.
Her maternal grandfather was a champion swimmer and surf belt competitor at Bondi before competing for the now-defunct Waitemata club after emigrating. He died just before Teneale was born, but his influence has always been a partial inspiration for her.
Teneale was five when her parents, Jim and Patricia, left Queenstown and moved the family - which includes her two older brothers - north for work and schooling reasons. With surfing in the blood, Patricia Hatton had Teneale splashing around in the water as soon as they got to Auckland.
Teneale, who attended Carmel College, quickly marked herself down as a star of the future and has honed her skills and attitude across the Tasman. Australia is a second home of sorts, and Hatton says it is the perfect school of hard knocks.
"Everyone is more focused over there," she says.
"You are there to train and you have fun in your own time. The attitude is just more aggressive - everyone wants to win whereas it's a bit more about having fun over here.
"I was pretty competitive anyway but I've become more so and a bit smarter in my racing and training. You have really aggressive racing in Australia and it's taught me a lesson or two.
"If you do anything wrong in a race the girls will come up to you on the finish line and really confront you about it. They'll push you around the cans, with no holding back."
An incident involving a competitor from the Southport club named Sheree Merriful epitomises the Aussie experience for her.
"She came up at the finish of a race and started yelling at me, saying 'if you do that again you'll pay for it - watch out next time', meaning if I was in her way she'd bash into me or whatever.
"She'd caught her paddle on someone else's ski and blamed me for her not winning that race and finishing in the top three.
"I knew I hadn't done anything wrong - I was leading so I had the rights. At the time she scared me a little bit but I spoke with some other girls and they said that she did that quite often.
"But they've all got that kind of attitude in Australia. They are there to race their own race, and don't let anyone stand in their way.
"There are so many people and it's so competitive. The Australian personality might be a bit different to ours as well.
"You can even see it in the attitude of their juniors. They train morning and night at the beach, some of our clubs do that but there is a bit more of a fun attitude in New Zealand."
Training with the Australian kayakers, as Taylor has also done, has led to improvements in Hatton's times.
She will compete in the under-19s for the fourth and final time plus the open section at Mt Maunganui this weekend. She says the hard-headed Australian influence has given her more confidence for the open event.
Flitting between Australia and New Zealand is now an accepted part of her schedule, and she also heads to Europe with the national kayak squad in the middle of the year. Among all that, she studies commerce and environmental science at Auckland University.
Keeping both the surf and kayak careers going adds a welcome variety to training. Her Olympic aim is straightforward.
"I'm aiming for the 2012 Olympics and aiming to medal by 2016," she says.
Taylor, also from North Harbour, has already blazed a trail in that regard. She planned to debut at the 2012 London Games but won qualification for China through Oceania, becoming the first Kiwi women to compete in the Olympic kayaking.
The direct Olympic path is via a world championship final place. Hatton says there is a cluster of Kiwi women - Taylor, Connie Richards, Lisa Carrington and herself - who she hopes will line up in the Olympics together one day.
